The San Diego County medical examiner's office has released football great Junior Seau's brain tissue to the National Institutes of Health for studies to identify any
brain injuries Seau may have sustained
during his career, a spokeswoman for the office said Thursday.

The spokeswoman did not say when the brain tissue was released or provide other details.

Physicians with the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke were planning an analysis of the autopsied brain tissue, according to a statement the institutes released Thursday afternoon. The statement did not say what researchers hoped to learn from Seau's brain.

Results of the analysis will not be disclosed to the public.

"In order to protect Mr. Seau's children's right to privacy, NIH will not discuss the status of the tissue or any subsequent findings," the statement said.

The famed linebacker, 43,
committed suicide
by shooting himself in the chest May 2 at his seaside home on The Strand in Oceanside, authorities said. His girlfriend
discovered his body
in a spare bedroom at 9:35 a.m.

Researchers have expressed interest in studying Seau's brain because of the possibility that he received many concussions during
his long career
as a football player.

A star athlete at Oceanside High School and the University of Southern California, Seau joined the NFL's San Diego Chargers and went on to earn a spot in the Pro Bowl 12 times. He made the league's list of All-Pro starters for 10 years.

He retired in 2009, ending a football career that spanned two decades.

During his career, Seau was never listed as having a concussion on an official NFL injury report, which is made public each week of the season. Still, there has been widespread speculation that brain injuries may have contributed to mental health problems that motivated Seau to kill himself.

Fanning some of the speculation were a 2010 incident in which
Seau drove off a cliff in Carlsbad
---- later claiming to have fallen asleep at the wheel ---- and similarities between the iconic athlete's suicide and that of Chicago Bears safety Dave Duerson.

Duerson died late last year of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest. Before he died, Duerson acknowledged having sustained 10 concussions during his NFL career.

Researchers at Boston University studied Duerson's brain and determined that he had "moderately advanced" symptoms of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease linked to repeated head trauma that can only be diagnosed postmortem.

Although parallels may exist between the deaths of Duerson and Seau, no NFL official or family member has said publicly whether Seau had significant brain trauma or the mental side effects associated with it.

Former San Diego State offensive lineman Kyle Turley, who played for eight years in the NFL and has advocated for concussion awareness, said after Seau's death that he hoped study of Seau's brain would help provide new insight to the factors that contributed to Seau's decision to end his life.

"Junior isn't around to tell us exactly why he did what he did, but his brain will give us a clue," Turley said earlier this year.